


A Hug for a Bet

by noiproksa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family Feels, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hugs, Platonic Cuddling, Self-Made Family, Team Free Will, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-08-26 01:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16672447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noiproksa/pseuds/noiproksa
Summary: In order to prove that Cas needs touch more than he does, Dean makes a bet with his angel that might just come back to bite him in the ass.(Intended as gen, but can be read as Destiel pre-slash.)





	1. Chapter 1

“I _hate_ witches, man!” Dean complained. Having just returned from a hunt with Sammy, he was currently sitting at the dinner table, stuffing his face with a burrito. Getting hexed always made him hungry. The curse was only slowly wearing off, which was why he only had one hand free to hold his burrito. His right arm was still slung across Sam’s shoulder in a half-hug. (And hadn’t _that_ been a fun drive home...)

“How did you end up catching her?” Cas asked, a frown on his face that showed he was not happy with the story of their hunt so far. His gaze kept wandering back to Sam and Dean’s strange half-hug.

“We didn’t,” Dean replied while chewing. “We tried running after her three-legged race style, but _someone_  tripped and brought us down.”

“That’s because _someone_ was off-rhythm,” Sam defended himself.

Cas tore his gaze away from Dean’s arm around Sam’s shoulder long enough to ask him, “Was that someone you, Dean?”

When Sam huffed out a laugh at that, Dean kicked him in the shin under the table. Instead of dignifying Cas’ question with an answer, he sighed and said, “Just… be grateful you weren’t there, man.”

“I am an Angel of the Lord,” Cas stated as if that line never got old.

“I’m a human, what’s your point?” Dean asked before taking another bite from his burrito, ignoring the fact that he was making quite a mess. He should have chosen something that was easier to eat with just one hand. At least Sammy, next to him, had trouble eating his salad, too.

“The curse would not have affected me,” Cas explained, who, of course, wasn’t eating anything himself but was just sitting across from them, watching them eat. “Angels do not care for touches one way or another.”

Stunned silence followed that statement. Dean had stopped chewing and even Sam had paused his fork halfway to his mouth. Swallowing his last bite, Dean laid his burrito down on the plate.

“Really?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he was thinking of all the times Cas had sought out physical contact. Cas, with his disregard for personal space, invading Dean’s at every opportunity he got, even after Dean had tried explaining that concept to him numerous times. Cas, who liked watching over him when he was frigging _sleeping_ for crying out loud…

“Yes.” As so often, the sarcasm flew right over Cas’ head. “Does that surprise you?”

“Hm. Let’s see. Does this _blatant_ _lie_ surprise me?” Dean pretended to think about it. Then he nodded. “Yes, actually, I would have to say that it does, a little bit.”

“It is not a lie,” Cas denied. “Humans require touch. Angels do not.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Dean looked over at Sam to get some assistance in this argument, but his brother had resumed eating his salad and did not seem inclined to help him out in any way. So Dean had to turn back to Cas and continue, “You’re the most touchy-feely angel that I know. You wouldn’t last more than a couple _days_ without touching us.”

“Please leave _me_ out of this,” Sam mumbled as he withdrew his arm from around Dean’s back. Huh. Seemed like the curse had finally worn off completely. Dean found that he was able to retract his arm, too, and he shook it out after all the time wrapped around Sammy.

“I could go centuries without touching any humans and I would not even realize it,” Cas was boasting in the meantime.

That was such bullshit and Dean was so gonna call him on that. “Yeah, wanna bet?” he asked. “You’re gonna touch me way before I even think about touching you.”

“This will be what you call an ‘easy win’ for me,” Cas said, matter-of-fact as ever.

“Oh boy,” Sam mumbled under his breath and raised a hand to his forehead, massaging the bridge of his nose.

Dean turned to him and raised his eyebrows. He didn’t have time for his brother’s passive-aggressive bullshit right now. “Something you wanna say, Sammy?”

“Nope.” Sam shook his head. “This is a very… healthy bet. Not at all insane.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Cas said promptly.

“He didn’t mean…” Dean started, but then decided that he was better off not explaining it to the angel and waved it off. “Whatever.—Sam’s the judge,” he decided.

“Seriously. I’m staying out of this one,” Sam repeated.

“Sure thing, judge,” Dean said absent-mindedly, already holding out his finally free hand across the table for Cas to shake. Cas was looking at it with a frown on his face, his head tilted slightly to the side, and Dean realized that he probably hadn’t made a lot of bets with humans before. “You shake on it to show that the bet is binding,” he explained. Cas nodded his understanding and took his hand in a firm grip.

“Aaand… the judge says you both lost the bet,” Sam declared. “Was fun while it lasted—and you lasted all of half a minute.—Hey, that’s twenty seconds more than I would have given you.”

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean said and added, as he let go of Cas’ hand, “The bet starts _now_.”

“This is so dumb,” Sam stated, shaking his head. “You don’t even get to win anything.”

Huh. Dean had totally forgotten about that. Well, it was more about making a point anyway. The most tactile angel in the garrison thought he could bullshit them and say he didn’t care for touches? Yeah, Dean would totally make him eat those words…

***

Dean had been so sure he would win this thing in under a day, two tops. But then _he_ was the one who found himself almost-touching Cas quite a few times. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing if _he_ ended up losing the bet? Well, luckily there was no chance of that happening because Cas was definitely the one initiating more of their touches… right?

So why did the angel seem to have no problem keeping his distance? Even when Dean gave off his best ‘you know you wanna come over here and give me a comfort hug’ vibe, Cas merely glanced at him and looked away again. This was gonna be harder than expected…

When the bet went on for multiple days, Dean started to worry that angels did, in fact, not care about touching in any way and that Cas had simply adapted human mannerisms when interacting with them. The bet was quickly becoming tiresome because Dean had to keep himself from nudging Cas, laying a hand on his arm, clapping his shoulder, punching him slightly and on one occasion even high-fiving him…

And then, of course, came the inevitable moment when Cas returned to them after he had gotten himself abducted by the bad guys.

In his worry about Cas, Dean had completely forgotten about the bet during the last couple of days. But now that his angel was here again, standing in the bunker’s control room right in front of them and looking a bit worse for wear, all Dean wanted to do was walk up to him and wrap him in his arms. He took a few steps towards him, his face breaking out into a big grin and he was ready to give Cas the biggest hug ever—which was, of course, when he remembered the stupid bet.

He paused in his advance and simply said, “Cas,” his voice suddenly a rasp, trying to convey how happy and relieved he was to see him.

“Dean,” Cas replied, smiling at him, his gaze boring into Dean as if he was trying to hug him with his eyes. They just stared at each other for a moment, Dean itching to get closer, reassure himself that Cas was fine and alive and here…

“Sam,” Sam’s voice brought him up short and he tore his gaze away from Cas to turn and look at his brother, seeing Cas do the same out of the corners of his eyes.

“Sam,” Cas repeated dutifully.

The next second, Sam brushed past Dean, taking a few steps towards Cas and mumbling something that sounded like, “Stubborn idiots.” Then he wrapped his arms around the angel and said, “Glad you’re back,” clapping him on the back a few times.

Right. Sammy was allowed to do that. He didn’t have a dumb bet going on.

“Yeah, don’t get yourself kidnapped again,” Dean added, still smiling, at least on the outside.

***

Of course, Cas being an angel and all, there were other touches to be considered—something Dean hadn’t even thought about when making the bet.

“Could you heal that, please?” he asked Cas, holding out his arm to the angel. They were back at the bunker after a nasty fight, safe and sound, and Sam had hurried off to take a shower, leaving Cas and Dean in the control room. Dean had thought the cut he had sustained in the fight wasn’t so bad at first, but on the drive home the pain had only gotten worse.

Cas reached out, only to stop half-reach and drop his arm again, narrowing his eyes at him. “Is that a trick to make me touch you first?” he asked.

Yeah, Dean wished.—Actually, why had he not come up with a trick like that before? “Nah,” Dean said casually. “I am temporarily lifting the bet.”

Cas seemed to consider that for a moment. “Is that allowed?” he then asked warily.

“Well, the judge isn’t here, so I’m making up the rules.—Come on.” He thrust out his arm under Cas’ nose and Cas finally relented, wrapping his hand around Dean’s wrist and letting healing energy flow through Dean’s arm.

The whole healing business seemed to take Cas longer than usual. He didn’t let go of Dean’s wrist even after the cut had healed, which gave Dean an idea. As Cas was about to finally retract his arm, Dean hurried to say, “You know, my right shoulder is a bit stiff, too.”

Cas laid his other hand on Dean’s shoulder as if he even needed to touch the area that was hurting, and Dean leaned into the touch, feeling healing energy course through his shoulder (where he didn’t even really need it if he was completely honest). The bet had been temporarily lifted after all, so he might as well make the most of it.

“Is your other shoulder feeling alright?” Cas asked, his left hand still on Dean’s shoulder and his other hand still wrapped around his wrist.

“Now that you mention it, not really,” Dean said, aware of the fact that he was starting to get reckless.

So his left shoulder got a little attention as well before Cas finally let go of him altogether.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Then Cas asked, “Is the bet in place again?”

“Yeah.” Dean cleared his throat, taking a step back because Cas was doing the weird ‘standing in his personal space’ thing again. “Yes. For sure.”

A fact that he did not regret, not in the slightest... Apart from the way in which the distance between them suddenly seemed so much bigger, even though he had only taken one tiny step back.


	2. Chapter 2

A couple more days passed after that and Dean realized that his bad mood (when had he gotten into a bad mood?) was rubbing off on Sammy who kept glancing at them, sighing, shaking his head, rolling his eyes and looking away again.

One evening when they were all sitting together in the library, Sam and Cas looking at some ancient lore together and Dean sitting a few feet away from them surfing on his laptop, Sam and Cas started whispering about something. Dean paused for a moment and strained his ears trying to eavesdrop. Unfortunately, their voices were too low to make out what they were talking about.

Suddenly, Cas got up and left the room without a word or a backward glance.

Dean looked after him for a moment, then closed his laptop and decided to join Sam in his geeky… whatever it was that he was doing. When Dean sat down in the chair Cas had just vacated, Sam looked up from his book.

“So,” Dean said, unsure of how to trick Sammy into revealing what they had been whispering about. The direct approach usually worked well for him, so he settled on, “What did you guys talk about?”

Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Just stuff.” With that he turned his attention back to his book, dismissing Dean.

“What kind of stuff?” Dean pressed.

“Can’t tell you,” Sam said without looking up from his book. “I promised him I wouldn’t say anything.”

Wait, what? Since when did Cas have secrets from _him_ that he felt comfortable sharing with Sammy? _He_ was supposed to be the one Cas shared a ‘more profound bond’ with, dammit!

“You know how keeping secrets turns out in this family,” Dean pointed out, trying to bait Sammy into revealing what was going on.

Sam looked up again and caved surprisingly fast. Huh, Dean would have thought he’d try to keep Cas’ secret at least a little bit longer before succumbing to Dean’s nagging. “You know him,” Sam said, closing his book but keeping a finger inside. “Most stubborn Angel of the Lord. Can’t admit when he’s wrong.”

Dean nodded. “You’re telling _me_.” Wait… what? Cas had admitted that he had been wrong before on multiple occasions. What was Sammy getting at?

“He really misses your closeness, man,” Sam said as if it was no big deal. “He feels lonely. He wants this stupid bet to be over already.”

Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat. He hadn’t meant to make Cas feel that way. All he had wanted to do was call him on his ‘doesn’t care for touching’ bluff.

“He told you that?”

“Yeah. But don’t tell him I told you, okay?”

“No. Yeah. Of course not,” Dean babbled, sitting there, stunned.

“What are you waiting for? He wanted to go to his room.” There was something in Sammy’s eyes as he said it—something Dean knew from… somewhere. But he had bigger problems than to figure out Sam’s expressions and so he got up off his chair abruptly to go and talk to Cas.

When he arrived at Cas’ room, Dean knocked and waited for the mumbled, “Come in” to enter the room. Cas was sitting on his bed, feeling around for something under his pillow.

“Hey,” Dean said, trying for a soft tone of voice.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas answered, getting up off the bed and looking around the room. Was he avoiding eye contact?

“Sam told me,” Dean said when he didn’t come up with a suave segue into the topic. Sammy could bitch about Dean telling Cas later. No need beating around the bush.

“He told you what?” Cas asked, opening the bedside drawer.

“What you guys were talking about.” Dean took a step closer, ready to finally make good for the hug he had missed out on a few days ago.

“Really?” Cas looked up at that, the drawer still open. “Did he also tell you _where_ he put it? Why did he even put it in my room in the first place? He has his own room. Humans are very particular about their private spaces, I have learned.—You should know, you have this whole set of rules about personal space.”

“Uhm… _what_?” Something was not adding up here.

“The book on ancient lore about dark witches?” Cas said, still looking around the room. “I am starting to believe he did not leave it here after all.”

“Son of a bitch!” Dean said. This one had been close. He had almost walked up to Cas and hugged him tight, effectively losing the bet. “That’s what you two were talking about?”

“Yes.—I thought Sam told you.” Cas was squinting at him warily. “Which seems strange because he told _me_ he didn’t want you to know that he had lost track of where he put the book.”

Dean shook his head. That’s where he had seen the glint in Sam’s eyes before—whenever he played a practical joke on Dean. Nice try, Sammy. Impartial judge, as if! He had totally tried to get Dean to lose the bet. Good to know his brother was on Cas’ side. Dean would have to be extra careful from now on…

***

Sammy had been mad when he found out his little ruse had not worked. Not as mad as Dean was with him, though, for trying to manipulate him. If anything, _he_ was the master manipulator. And with that thought in mind, Dean knocked on Cas’ door again the very next evening. It was time for another time-out. He would never say that out loud, but Sammy had a point; this bet was getting ridiculous. Since he didn’t need healing at the moment, he had come up with another excuse.

“I lost my keys,” he started. “Can you do your thing? You know, get into my head, look for the memory where I left them?”

He knew that he was playing with fire. Not that he missed touching the angel. But if he did, Cas might be able to see that, too, if he roamed around inside his head. But then again, Dean trusted Cas and the angel would keep the mind-reading focused on the memory concerning the keys, Dean was sure of it. Which was why he had carefully and ‘accidentally’ let them drop behind his bed.

Before Cas could ask, Dean reassured him, “Bet’s been temporarily lifted again. I just really need your mojo.”

Dean took the few steps to the chair and pulled it forward, turning it around so that he was able to sit down with the back of the chair in front of him. He crossed his arms over the back of the chair and tried to relax. Getting his mind read was definitely not his favorite pastime, but there were limited options for what he could need Cas’ touch for.

As plans went, this one wasn’t thought out all that well, since Dean had no clue what step two of his plan was just yet. He was good at making things up on the fly, though, so he hoped it would come to him in time.

“This seems like a trivial thing to subject yourself to a mind reading for,” Cas pointed out.

“Baby is not a ‘trivial thing,’” Dean retorted. “I lost her keys, so… Get to it.” Before he changed his mind. He took a deep breath in anticipation of what was to come.

Cas stepped behind him and laid his hands on Dean’s head. Dean braced himself, but since he was not trying to block Cas’ attempt at getting inside his head and Cas was not looking around for anything traumatic, the experience wasn’t too painful or uncomfortable, if a bit unnerving.

“Dean…” Cas said and Dean had no idea what he had seen or found, but he couldn’t let Cas continue, so he interrupted him.

“Look, I…”

He had no idea what he was going to say, but he didn’t have to come up with something anyway because right at that moment, the door to Cas’ room sprung open and Cas severed the contact between them, leaving Dean feeling a bit dizzy from the sudden loss of a presence inside his head.

He vaguely heard some words being mumbled that sounded somewhat familiar, and when he looked up, he saw Sammy in front of him who blew some purple powder in their faces that made Dean sneeze.

“What the…” Dean said who had a strange sense of déjà vu. Instantly he felt a magnetic pull towards Cas and the next second they were joined at the… everything, hugging each other tightly.

“Would you look at that?” Sam said, a big grin on his face, addressing Cas. “The spell does affect you after all.”

“Sammy!” Dean yelled, but the grin on Sam’s face only turned wider.

“Judge rules: No winner, just two idiots.” And with that he simply turned around and walked out the door, the little shit.

“We were just getting there ourselves, bitch!” Dean yelled after Sam, but he had no way of knowing if his little brother had even still heard that.

“Dean, would you mind not shouting into my ear?” Cas asked. Oh, right. The magic pull didn’t really allow Dean to move far (or try half an inch) away from Cas.

“Sorry,” Dean mumbled, as he succumbed to the pull and turned his head into Cas’ neck.

“Should we run after him ‘three-legged race style’?” Cas suggested, his breath tickling Dean’s ear.

“Nah,” Dean said. “There’s nowhere he can run. We’ll get him sooner or later.”

And then there was silence. Dean had Cas wrapped securely in his arms, unable to let go even if he wanted to, and seriously—this situation could not get any more awkward. Frigging Sam and his meddling!

Dean slowly counted to thirty inside his head, but Cas still wasn’t saying anything and Dean couldn’t bear the silence anymore. “So… Angels are not affected by a curse like this, huh?” Dean decided to carefully broach the subject.

“I am an angel, Dean,” Cas replied.

“Yeah, I know,” Dean said, having no idea where this was going.

“I am affected by the curse,” Cas continued. “So your logic is flawed. Clearly, angels _are_ affected by a curse like this.”

“ _My_ logic is flawed?” Dean repeated.

“I may have underestimated… What I meant to say is…” Cas stumbled over his words before finally settling on, “Angels do not care for touch the way humans do.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dean was so beyond contesting him on that. If saying that made him feel better, who was Dean to call him out on it. He knew the truth, after all. In order to convey this sentiment, Dean tentatively rubbed the angel’s back. Cas might not need or ‘care for’ touch the way humans do, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like it.

“No, that’s not… They’re not _supposed_ to,” Cas stressed. “But I realized… I do.”

“Okay, that’s… yeah.” Dean was grateful that he didn’t have to look at Cas for this conversation because they were still hugging each other so tightly, their heads over each other’s shoulders. Maybe that’s why he found himself admitting, his voice no more than a whisper, “Me too.”

“Well, needing touch _is_ inherent to your species,” Cas pointed out.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, even though he doubted that needing an _angel’s_ touch was ‘inherent to his species.’

“So,” Cas said after a few seconds of silence. “Do we just… keep standing here?”

“The curse should get weaker in a while so we can downgrade to a half-hug,” Dean said, hating the fact that he had so much experience with these kinds of curses that he knew how they went down. Which reminded him… “You know… I know from experience that this lasts a while. Gives us plenty of time to come up with a revenge plan. Make sure Sammy knows not to mess with us.”

In response, Cas cuddled up to him, which was as much agreement as Dean needed.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, your feedback is highly appreciated and never fails to put a huge smile on my face. <3
> 
> I hope this fic is not too cracky. Do you recognize a scene somewhere that reminds you of a canon scene?


End file.
